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The PR Voyeur

Commentary and introspection about trends and controversy in the online social media and public relations field. A side-project of Danielle's. You can find her other work at blogto.com or househippo.org

This is an interesting situation because it’s definitely not a stunt, this is a promise for sustainability and ethics, but I have to admit that conflict-free is an interesting term that still leaves something to be desired.

Let’s hope Intel actually follows through with this goal and sets a precedent for other technology giants in the future. Imagine if mobile providers also did this? Apple, Samsung, you’ve been paged.

shortformblog:

To address the issue of conflict minerals, through the end of 2011, Intel had identified 98 smelter sites and visited 48 of them in 16 countries to lay the groundwork for third-party audits. Intel’s goal is to demonstrate that its microprocessors are validated as conflict-free for tantalum by the end of 2012, and to manufacture the world’s first microprocessor fully validated as conflict-free across all four minerals (gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten) by the end of 2013.

The result of this? Intel, if successful, would produce the world’s first conflict-free processor by the end of 2013. The phrase “conflict-free” generally gets used in terms of diamonds and other rare materials, but by doing this, Intel is shining a light on a problem few think about. Intel also has a number of other goals for itself that it hopes to reach by 2020 — including “zero chemical waste to landfill” and reducing water usage. We wish them luck. (ht Geek.com)

This is something that should never have happened, but the DEA thinks that they can solve this situation by doing exactly what it was got them there in the first place. By ignoring the fact that a young man was probably traumatized for life (imagine FIVE DAYS in room with no food, water, anything while being able to hear others just outside the door) they’ve basically shut down comment on this situation and the media is doing the commentary for them. Something is horribly wrong and they need to address it. With trust in the DEA and government still riding low, something needs to be said. 
Reminder: He was locked up initially for marijuana use.
thedailywhat:

Follow-Up of the Day: Student Left In Cell Sues DEA For $20M: It was never a question of when, but how much: Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student abandoned in a cell by the Drug Enforcement Administration for five days without food, water, or human contact, has filed a lawsuit seeking $20 million in damages.From the letter sent by Chong’s attorney to DEA general counsel:

“The deprivation of food and water for four and one-half days while the person is handcuffed the entire time constitutes torture under both international and domestic law.”

The letter requests that all federal agencies preserve any evidence related to the case, including video, interview notes, and written reports.
[death+taxes]

This is something that should never have happened, but the DEA thinks that they can solve this situation by doing exactly what it was got them there in the first place. By ignoring the fact that a young man was probably traumatized for life (imagine FIVE DAYS in room with no food, water, anything while being able to hear others just outside the door) they’ve basically shut down comment on this situation and the media is doing the commentary for them. Something is horribly wrong and they need to address it. With trust in the DEA and government still riding low, something needs to be said.

Reminder: He was locked up initially for marijuana use.

thedailywhat:

Follow-Up of the Day: Student Left In Cell Sues DEA For $20M: It was never a question of when, but how much: Daniel Chong, the UC San Diego student abandoned in a cell by the Drug Enforcement Administration for five days without food, water, or human contact, has filed a lawsuit seeking $20 million in damages.
From the letter sent by Chong’s attorney to DEA general counsel:

“The deprivation of food and water for four and one-half days while the person is handcuffed the entire time constitutes torture under both international and domestic law.”

The letter requests that all federal agencies preserve any evidence related to the case, including video, interview notes, and written reports.

[death+taxes]

Haven’t been here in awhile, hi! 

So, we all remember the riots in Vancouver when the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup Playoffs last year right? This is an ad campaign on behalf of the team to address the situation. 

Is it effective? Do you think this will change anything? Is this an appropriate response?

In my opinion, this seems rather weak all things considered, a much stronger message could have been sent here.

BTW. This never happens in Toronto because we haven’t even gotten to the conference finals in a decade. The most VALUABLE TEAM IN THE NHL.

Celebrate Responsibly posters (This Is Our Home PSA)

(Source: narkusmaslund, via wayoutofbounds)

A disastrous situation has erupted in Wisconsin, with an elementary teacher making an example of a Native American student for teaching some classmates the words for ‘Hello’ and ‘I love you’ in her native tongue of Menominee. Her teacher told her it was inappropriate and engaged further teachers in her tirade, calling the situation disrespectful and that the student was showing ‘attitude’ while speaking the language.

Obviously this became an outroar and the teacher released an apology that read more like a justification of the punishment instead of any sort of apology.

Now this has gone international. 

If a child was speaking Mandarin, French, German, Spanish or even, Polish, would they have been punished by this same teacher due to her insecurity with other languages? Probably.

Does it help that she censored a Native American student? Absolutely not and the fallout is going to be huge.

While YouTube’s advertisement system has been the subject of critique before, this “reply girl” situation is becoming a scandal of epic proportions. But just like click-sharks on google ads and SEO exploits on websites, it really does lie to the fault of the person viewing or watching. If you don’t want to support somebody piggy-backing on a video of substance, don’t watch it.
The YouTube community is torn, some people acknowledge that it’s in these people’s fair rights to behave this way while others are shocked at the audacity of the vloggers. I say, why is YouTube so special? They have some of the most anonymous, racist, homophobic commentators, why should YouTube staff start pulling down harmless videos, they’re vapid and cheap, but why does this require extra attention? Is it because it’s boobs? Male spammers, email hijackers and click sharks have used the promise of ‘real girls now!’ or ‘chat with girls’ or pure basic porn spam to take advantage of web users for years, why can’t actual women get a go at taking advantage of desperate clickers on the web?
Don’t hate them for their boobs, hate them for their savvy, they’re embracing the wild wild west of what constitutes fraud on creative content sites. Leave the reply girls alone.
We’ve yet to see this phenomenon analyzed anywhere in the media, so let’s give this a signal boost: The secret to becoming popular on YouTube is to build heat. Sometimes you create something so great it goes viral on its own. Sometimes you know the right people and the right places. Sometimes, though, you’re good with the timing and keywords. That is actually an effective way to get popular on YouTube — this Pomplamoose clip, for example, was a very well-timed attempt to bank its success on a popular song at the height of its notoriety. But what if you take that philosophy to the extreme? The answer is that you end up with TheReplyGirl. Let’s explain how this works:
  • The concept A woman who claims to go by the name Alejandra Gaitan, above, has been on YouTube since August, and her main routine is to reply to popular videos, load her responses with ads, and wear something revealing, with the goal of enticing a click. She’s not alone — a woman who calls herself Megan Lee Heart, for example, posted a well-tagged video after Whitney Houston died and got 100,000 views. And hundreds of dislikes on the clip.
  • The precedent Gaitan, Heart and others are essentially pulling off an elaborate search engine optimization scheme on YouTube. Their videos show up high on YouTube search results because of strong tagging and they get clicks because of the eye-grabbing visuals. The result is that the videos themselves are extremely low-quality (Gaitan’s clips can be hard to follow at times), but it doesn’t matter, because the goal is to build up ad impressions.
  • Here’s the thing … TheReplyGirl is interesting because it’s a new twist on a relatively old idea — the production of low-quality content that shows up high in search results, which has the side effect of diluting searches. Minus the human being talking, this was basically Demand Media’s business model. The question is, though, will Google step in? They took on Demand, forcing the company to change its model. Will they do the same on YouTube?
Edit: Reworded part of this for clarification.

This is the power of social media right here. I read about this kid on Mashable of all places. I’m not a sports fan really, I enjoy going to a Jays game for the atmosphere but I don’t shell out the kind of money required for the NBA, but I think this is an amazing example of the power of sports and their close connection to their fans. 

~~ A middle schooler has called out NBA superstar LeBron James for not participating in the All-Star Weekend, AGAIN, and young Sollomon has made a video calling him out, but with real finesse and charisma. I seriously want a response to this, this kid isn’t making rude YouTube videos for attention, he’s a REAL BASKETBALL FAN with a REAL LEGITIMATE concern. He admires LeBron James and wants him to do the dunk contest, for all his fans to see.

The fans want it and this kid wants it, as he says “It’s the NBA (All-Star Game) where magic happens, not where the rookies go because the All-Stars are at the hotels clubbing and drinking and stuff, come one!” 

Come on Lebron, don’t let an adorably on-point kid best you.

Kid Calls Out LeBron James on YouTube Over Dunk Contest No-Show [VIDEO]
Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks. LeBron James, you have officially been called out. By a kid. On YouTube. “Why won’t you play in the dunk contest this year, man?” asks young Sollomon Gessesse, who uses the Twitter handle @…

darlingmagpie:

Victim Shaming

The Daily What has since removed this from their main page, probably due to all the criticism surrounding this post. They essentially shame the victim (Rihanna) instead of the perpetrator (Chris Brown) for their public “reconciliation” of shorts. The comments were a firestorm of controversy but it still exists on tumblr at least for the moment. I was pretty disgusting and sent a strongly worded email to both The Daily What and the Cheezeburger network.

thedailywhat:

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: Between allegedly inviting him to her birthday party, and probably collaborating with him on a “Birthday Cake” remix, and irrefutably thanking him for wishing her a happy birthday, I think it may be high time Rihanna re-read the police report from the night Chris Brown beat her half to death. 

Particularly this part:

Brown did not know what she did with the [car] key and began punching her in the face and arms. He then placed her in a head lock positioning the front of her throat between his bicep and forearm. Brown began applying pressure to Robyn F.’s left and right carotid arteries, causing her to be unable to breathe and she began to lose consciousness.

She reached up with her left hand and began attempting to gouge his eyes in an attempt to free herself. Brown bit her left ring and middle fingers and then released her.

You nearly died that night, Rihanna. You nearly died that night

“I’m going to beat the sh*t out of you when we get home,” he promised. You attempted to call for help and that just made him angrier. “Now I’m really going to kill you,” he vowed.

Any of this ringing a bell? Because I’ll never forget that night. I’ll never forget the horrific photos. I’ll never forget reading the terrifying police report.

And I’ll never forgive you for forgiving him.

[@rihanna.]

I was chatting with a friend the other day about how distateful I found all the “Lin” pull quotes that have been proliferating the sports journalism since the young Knicks star took the court. I’m a touch more sensitive, I understand sports writing is all about puns and cliches, but I certainly thought it bordered on discrimination. Twitter has been full of off-colour jokes about everything from his penis size to his youtube videos, and people have already been talking about why a kid this good took so long to be found and whether if he had been black or white, he would have been found ages ago. I guess if you’re not a 7 foot tall asian basketball player, they just completely discount you.

Then today comes around and my boyfriend shows me this garbage from ESPN of all places. This isn’t even MISGUIDED or an accient, this is outright racism. Asian-American teens across the continent are seeing this response and learning one thing, that the sports world and the NBA do not respect their talent. I’m pretty disgusted right now. Apology or not, late night oversight or not, this should never have happened.

thedailywhat:

Some Dumb Erratum of the Day: In the rush to come up with pun headlines to describe the phenom that is Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, unfortunately it was probably just a matter of time before someone slipped up and said something racist.

But many likely never thought that someone would be ESPN.

Covering the Knicks loss to the Hornets and the snapping of the rising star’s 7-game winning streak, the venerable sports network titled their article “Chink In The Armor.”

The offensive slur-pun was up on ESPN.com for 35 minutes between 2:30 and 3:05 AM.

As Mike Nizza of The Daily points out, the overnight shift lacks the sort of oversight that might have halted such an insensitive headline well prior to publishing, but that’s hardly an excuse.

ESPN has since released a statement apologizing for their choice of words, and vowing to conduct a “complete review of our cross-platform editorial procedures.”

[romenesko / screengrab: thanks dmoser2!]

Remember when o.b. tampons withdrew their Ultra Tampons from the market in early December 2011? No? That’s ok, I had forgotten as well.

They fell under a FIRESTORM of controversy for that product discontinuation, as few leading feminine hygiene makers create anything similar. BUT did you ever see the amazing pseudo-personalized MUSIC VIDEO they made to pass along their regrets, along with a coupon?

A VERY inventive use of social media I must say. 

Remember when I decried this post a week ago, wondering if anybody had found the actress who participated in this horribly racist and culturally insensitive video? They found her! And not only has she issued a statement apologizing, this 21 year old has also ALREADY had to make a public apology for lying about being a Napa Valley resident to compete in the 2012 Miss California pageant. Two public apologies at such a young age, you’re off to a lovely start Ms Chan.
thedailywhat:

Follow Up of the Day: Lisa Chan, the Asian-American actress who appeared in former Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra’s widely excoriated “Yellow Peril” campaign ad, has formally apologized for agreeing to play the part of a Chinese stereotype.
“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” Chan wrote in a Facebook post.
She continued:

As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.

The 21-year-old UC Berkeley graduate is the founder of a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth. She made headlines last year after she dubbed herself “Miss Napa Valley USA” despite not living in Napa County in order to compete in the 2012 Miss California pageant.
[cheatsheet / aam.]

Remember when I decried this post a week ago, wondering if anybody had found the actress who participated in this horribly racist and culturally insensitive video? They found her! And not only has she issued a statement apologizing, this 21 year old has also ALREADY had to make a public apology for lying about being a Napa Valley resident to compete in the 2012 Miss California pageant. Two public apologies at such a young age, you’re off to a lovely start Ms Chan.

thedailywhat:

Follow Up of the Day: Lisa Chan, the Asian-American actress who appeared in former Michigan congressman Pete Hoekstra’s widely excoriated “Yellow Peril” campaign ad, has formally apologized for agreeing to play the part of a Chinese stereotype.

“I am deeply sorry for any pain that the character I portrayed brought to my communities,” Chan wrote in a Facebook post.

She continued:

As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions.

The 21-year-old UC Berkeley graduate is the founder of a nonprofit organization for at-risk youth. She made headlines last year after she dubbed herself “Miss Napa Valley USA” despite not living in Napa County in order to compete in the 2012 Miss California pageant.

[cheatsheet / aam.]

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